ANITA BARROWS: AS QUOTED IN COMING BACK TO LIFE BY JOANNA MACY AND MOLLY YOUNG BROWN (1998 NEW SOCIETY PUBLISHERS) PG 38.

Local Programs

Calgary Eco-grief Support Circle: “We are a group of Calgarians who seek to create a container in which we can mutually support each other in honouring and releasing the grief and gratitude, pain and awe that we feel for our Earth.” For access to the Facebook group, contact Laura Keeth-Rowledge at laura.keeth@me.com.

Good Grief program: Friends of Fish Creek is a Calgary-based Provincial Park Society that has programs focused on connecting with nature to cope with other forms of grief.

The Work that Reconnects: Refugia offers workshops focused on moving through grief and into action using The Work That Reconnects framework (see below for more information about WTR). These workshops are usually 3-6 hours and typically run twice per year.

Yoga Seva YYC: offers Yoga with an eco-perspective to foster self-healing and an environmental perspective.

Work That Reconnects Activities

The Work that Reconnects is a critical framework that draws on ecology, spirituality and psychology to build empowerment, creativity and resilience for transition to a sustainable world. This framework includes a Theory of Change and personal practices for gratitude, grief and action. Below are practices and interviews with the root teacher of The Work That Reconnects, Joanna Macy.

Open Sentences is a guided exercise that can be done in groups or as a journalling activity.

Instructions are in the hyperlink. And linked here is an example of a group working through Open Sentences.

Breathing Through is a guided exercise that has been adapted from Buddhist meditation. It can be used to practice openness and compassion. A guided form of it can be found here.

I’m sitting in a one room solarium at King’s Fold Retreat Centre, 30 miles northwest of Cochrane, overlooking the Ghost River and the Eastern Slopes of the Canadian Rockies. It is a still morning. The large window affords me an immediate view of a golden aspen. Yesterday it was gently shaking in the breeze, leaves slowly fluttering. Today not a leaf moves. This place is special to me. For four years, I lived here at this little retreat centre on 166 acres of wilderness property. While here I was a witness to magic. The electric yellow of aspen groves illuminated in the autumn light. Ravens diving and twirling, chasing each other on the wind currents high above. A great grey owl gliding silently from fencepost to fencepost hunting at dawn. A bull moose, picturesque in profile on my morning run (who thankfully had no interest in me). The northern lights eerie and beautiful on a winter night. The clitter-clatter of grasshoppers, the warbling of robins, distinct chicka-dee-dee-dee of mountain and black-capped chickadees. And one of my most treasured encounters: an evening ridge walk under the full moon, snow crunching beneath my feet. And from the valley below, where the Ghost River babbles on its timeless journey: melodic, haunting singing. The cries of a wolf pack. Deep, resonant voices layering one over the other as they called back and forth into the evening.

The Eastern Slopes of the Canadian Rockies

This encounter, while magical, was also tinged with grief. This particular pack had been displaced from its longtime den by a large clear-cut happening up the road from our land. Late in the evening and early morning when the night was particularly silent and even the animals seemed to be asleep, I would walk out onto the ridge in front of our house and see the feller-buncher’s lights glowing from across the valley, moving back and forth clearing the trees. And I could hear in the distance the mechanical rumble of the beast disrupting the peace of the night. I pictured it as a monster. While I knew that humans operated the machine, humans whose livelihood depended upon it, I also couldn’t help but think about the destruction left in its wake. I also thought about the many other species of plants destroyed by human activity, the animals who lived in those trees and called that particular piece of land home: squirrels, mice, rabbit, deer, bobcat, wolves, and many others, all displaced from their home because of our “need.” All winter long, whenever I heard the wolves, I pictured them mourning, lamenting the loss of their den. While I felt their loss in my own body, I didn’t know how to mourn with them. My heart felt as though it were breaking.

That grief was compounded for me when I left the Ghost Valley the following autumn. Moving into the city, I had not anticipated the way it would feel as though my heart was being wrenched in two with much of it left on the valley floor. There is a particular intimacy that one begins to feel in a place that one has lived in and known well. I missed the cycles of the moon over the ridge, the outline of the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies – pink and orange in the morning light, a clear blue with shades of purple and silver at dusk – and the eagles that soared over the valley. The trees on the far ridge swaying gently in time to the music, the particular woodsy smell of leaves changing in the fall, and new forest growth in the spring. I missed living in a place where I felt connected to the seasons and rhythms of life, a place I felt I belonged.

Ecological grief has, for me, looked very similar to the grief of losing a loved one. It has felt as though an intimate part of my body and soul has been ripped away from me, leaving me fearful, lost, and deeply wounded. I have found it hard to know how to heal and how to grieve. How do you grieve the loss of something so intimate but also so other? And what does it look like to be patient and present to my own particular process? These are questions that I’ve been faced with as I mourned the loss of habitat for the wolves. And for my own loss of home in the Ghost.

Here is what I’ve learned from my experience:

1. There is no timeline to grief. Some days the clear-cut in the Ghost feels like a distant memory and some days it feels as present to me as though it were still happening. I’ve learned not to judge my feelings or my sorrow but to notice them and to honor them by giving them time and space. I do this in a number of ways. Some days I simply allow myself to feel what I’m feeling. At other times, I journal or reach out to friends who are patient and gentle with my grief even when they don’t understand it.

2. Personal and communal rituals help. When the clear-cut was finished (for now), a group of neighbors who had formed Stop Ghost Clear Cut (now known as the Ghost Valley Community) asked Amy and I to facilitate a ritual for grief and healing. You can read more about that in our previous blog. Additionally, to continue my grieving process, I have written letters to the land of the Ghost Valley, walked the labyrinth (at King’s Fold) as a guided process of letting go, and ritualized a burial ceremony. In this ritual I wrote a letter about what I was mourning and letting go on one side of paper and a letter about what I was hoping would be birthed out of the death on the other side. Each of these practices helped me to mourn and honor the grief that I experienced. Personal rituals have given me the opportunity to be thoughtful and present to my grief, and communal rituals have helped me to realize that I am not alone in these feelings.

3. Grief can be a doorway into solidarity and action. Author, activist, and eco-philosopher Joanna Macy has a quote that I have used as a touchstone during my own eco-grief. She says, “The other side of our pain for the world is our love for the world.” When we love something we work for good on its behalf. These words are a good reminder that the depth of our grief connects us to our capacity to love. When we grieve a loss it is because of our connection to and experience of love for that person/place/creature/thing. And our love empowers us to act for good on its behalf. During my time at the retreat centre, I struggled with not knowing how to act or what to do with my grief. I’ve learned that for me part of understanding my connection to nature and the non-human world has come through grief. The loss I’ve experienced has given me the ability to see my connection, deeply experience love and eventually discover the opportunity to move into solidarity through action.

Each of us has our own experience of moving through grief into love and action, as well as our own way that we are called to act in this world. For me, this has a been a process of learning that my action and contribution comes primarily through creating spaces for people to interact with their own connection to the non-human world while dialoguing with others about how to do that. I also practice painting, writing, and my work with Refugia itself has become a way that I can create space for others to experience and move through their understandings of connection, grief, solidarity and action.

I’d like to close with a quote by author and psychotherapist Francis Weller, from his book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: “Whenever we touch the places of loss in our lives, at whatever gate they appear, we move closer to the earth.” My grief gave me the opportunity to move closer to the earth by attending to the places of loss in my own life, allowing me to be reminded of my love and ultimately by leading me in to greater solidarity and action on behalf of the earth. My hope for you is that your experiences of ecological grief might do the same.

The trees outside my window as a child shaped my view of the world (both literally and figuratively). I could observe the seasonal changes from my bedroom window. These trees brought me joy, adventure, and comfort. My friends and I would need a ladder just to climb up to the bottom branch, where we would scramble to the heavens. In fall, we would write notes on leaves and roll them into a scroll, tying them closed with the stem, and deposit them into our neighbours’ mailboxes. In winter, the sounds of road hockey would reverberate off their trunks.

One day someone mentioned offhand that “the City” may have to come and chop them down someday, as they were growing too large. From that day, I had a deep-rooted anxiety that my beloved trees would be there one day, gone the next.

Part of the reason Jodi and I started Refugia Retreats was to explore these connections between the self, our natural world, and our communities. How can our communities grow stronger and our connections deeper, as the world changes? We think part of it starts with acknowledging the deep-rooted connections to landscapes and places we all share (and yet experience differently).

Subtle or drastic changes in the environment and ecology around us can have drastic effects on our emotional wellbeing. This applies to natural environments such as parks, green spaces, or individual organisms (for which I use the term ‘ecological grief’) and human-constructed environments such as neighbourhoods, coffee shops, museums, etc. (‘environmental grief’).

Sarah Jaquette Ray, a Professor of Environmental Studies at Humboldt State University, describes environmental programs as “some kind of twelve-step program, with its own arc of affects, moving in stages from idealism, to lost innocence, shame, denial, grief, apathy, optimism, and then, I can only hope, agency to work against diminution.”[1] When one is passionate about a certain place, species, community, friend, or family – it is natural to have anxiety about their decline, and grief for its loss.

In 2016, I had the opportunity to work with citizens of the Ghost River Valley, to explore and record their emotional responses to the changes in landscape around them. Lasting effects from the 2013 flood were apparent, clearcut logging was ongoing, and garbage was piling up beside roadways. What follows is a summary of my research: the similarities and differences between ecological grief and other forms of grief. These observations were made within a system (a case study), but I hope they are helpful if you are experiencing grief or anxiety yourself.

Is ecological grief real? Can you really mourn a landscape?

In short, yes. Responses to landscape alteration look surprisingly like patterns of grief identified by psychologists. Let’s break it down:

1. Everyone’s experience is unique

No two people experience a loss in the same way, and the same person may experience two losses drastically differently. This was true in the Valley – some people moved through the classic “5 stages of loss” identified by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. More often however, grief was sporadic: sometimes visceral, sometimes manageable, sometimes anger, sometimes contentment and acceptance.

2. There are physical and physiological responses to loss

Loss of sleep, depression, crying, loss of breath, nausea, inattention or distraction, and aches in the heart or stomach are all physical reactions to loss. All of these were present in at least some of the people affected by the landscape changes.

3. Rites of passage, lamentation, and bereavement groups can help

Several ceremonies were held in the Ghost River Valley to help cope with this loss (see our May 2017 blog post as an example). Participants mentioned talking about their experiences in community often helped them cope. Other forms of lament included art (writing, photography, etc.) and ritualizing loss (ex: cairn of mourning).

4. There’s a strong presence of blame or guilt

Rational or irrational guilt or blame is common during grief. Anger at the person who died, anger at doctors, anger at oneself for not doing more before a person died. As you can imagine, in a system with multiple actors (industry, government, citizens, etc.) blame and guilt can fester. The guilt or blame doesn’t even need to be targeted – it can be obscure or diffuse. One participant put it as “What’s wrong with us? … Where does it come from, this hubristic disregard for the sanctity of the natural world?”.

In environmental change, we’re all to blame, and yet none of us individually are to blame. Environmental degradation is most often a result of a thousand small decisions, rather than few large decisions. So to look for a easy target of blame is understandable, but difficult.

5. These experiences can cause shifts in worldview

Any large life event can shift one’s perception of the world. Environmental change is no different. For some, it creates cynicism. Sarah Jaquette Ray’s students, for example, move from idealism to denial to hope or despair. One Valley resident summarized their change as “all of a sudden I’m like struggling with these big questions… My personality changed… I have shifted from a cold person that only deals in facts to somebody… very different.”

6. Current losses can bring forth losses from the past

Perhaps the most confusing and surprising part of grief is it can muddle our timelines. The loss of someone dear to us can bring forth losses that happened decades ago. That’s because no one exists in a vacuum – people and places influence others – often in ways we don’t truly understand until they’re gone. Memory and place are intricately connected. When a landscape changes, the relationship with others may change too. Perhaps you used to go for walks in a park near your house with a friend. If that park changes, will the relationship with your friend change too? On the other hand, current losses can actually help people grieve previous losses. Connecting with her local community around clearcut logging helped one participant grieve the loss of her father a few years before.

7. Often, these experiences inspire action and a sense of hope

Dr. Kübler-Ross initially developed the 5-stage loss framework when working with people with terminal illness. What she recorded (and later applied more broadly to other forms of loss) was a framework of people grappling with their own death. What is interesting is even despite a terminal prognosis, each and every patient that Kübler-Ross encountered held onto some notion of hope[2]. Environmental degradation inspires similar sentiments of complex hope: nature will rebound, and we will learn from our mistakes and do better. For we only grieve what we love, and we work to protect what we love.

Is ecological grief the same as other forms of grief?

Absolutely not. As mentioned above, all forms of grief are unique. Ecological grief is particularly enigmatic for a few reasons:

1. Dull vs. sharp grief

Unlike the death of a person or clearcut logging event, the degradation of a landscape is often cumulative: increased litter, more disjointed spaces, less birds each year, etc. What I refer to as ‘dull’ grief are the day-in, day-out experiences, aggravations, and worries that come from living in an ecologically unstable world. ‘Sharp’ grief may occur after a specific event: a development, a flood, or a smoke-filled summer. It’s possible for ‘dull’ grief to wear you down, and ‘sharp’ grief to inspire you to action, or vice versa.

2. Simultaneous grief with anticipatory grief

When I lost my nana several years ago, I didn’t grieve her. And there was a lot of guilt around that (see point 4, above). When I discovered the term ‘anticipatory grief’, I understood why. My nana was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and had a slow decline. Over the years, she lost her bright personality and became confused, frustrated, and short-tempered – all the things she wasn’t. The reason her physical death left me more empty than sad was I had grieved her five years previously. You can grieve someone before they are physically gone.

A landscape is similar. You can grieve a landscape before it is gone – in the same way I had grieved the potential loss of my childhood trees. What makes ecological grief unique, is that you can grieve an environment in an anticipatory manner, while simultaneously be grieving what has already disappeared. Again, timelines get muddled.

3. Shades of loss

In Thom van Dooren’s book Flight Ways[3], he explores the question of species loss: when is a species fully extinct? Is it when the last member of a community has died? Or is it when there are so few numbers of a species are left that their patterns of life have changed? Can you really be a migratory bird when you don’t have friends to migrate with?

An ecosystem doesn’t disappear overnight. By definition, an ecosystem is a system of actors – both living and non-living, human and non-human. When elements are lost in an ecosystem, the system itself is not “dead” or “alive”. It might be less alive or diverse than before, or the elements many shift and change. In one way, this can make it easier to cope with: “well, this part of the forest is gone, but I still have forest over there.” In other ways, it feels like accumulated loss. It can feel like you don’t have a reason or justification to mourn because in some ways it still feels complete. This is an element I would love to explore more in future research.

4. Natural spaces still provide solace throughout a loss

Related to the previous point, what makes ecological grief so complex is that the natural world still provides solace, even as we grieve it. Grief researchers explain that grief may arise from “the withdrawal of psychobiological regulation previously provided by the deceased”[4]. The paradox is the very person who used to be there to help through hard times is not there to help you through the hardest thing at all – their own loss.

Fortunately, natural spaces don’t abandon us fully in the same way. Yes, certain natural spaces change and are lost over time. But thankfully, there are still beautiful spaces out there. Places to walk, think, dream, and play. These remaining spaces can renew and heal us.

And that is what Refugia is all about – finding the spaces of refuge and hope in a changeable world. Fostering healthy communities – both social and ecological. I believe our communities and our compassion are the tools for grappling with these emotional experiences to loss.

Join us for part 2 of this blog series next week, Oct 10th, as Jodi shares her story of ecological grief.

[1] Jaquette Ray, S. (2018) Coming of Age at the End of the World: The Affective Arc of Undergraduate Environmental Studies Curricula. In Bladow, K., and Ladino, J. (eds.) Affective Ecocriticism: Emotion, Embodiment, Environment. University of Nebraska Press.

Refugia Retreats started as a collaborative effort to explore the tough issues of our time through dialogue, retreats, and workshops. Refugia's mission is to create life-sustaining communities where we connect to ourselves, each other, and the web of life.

Since 2016, Refugia has brought people together around 8 retreats and workshops, 4 concerts, 2 podcasts, and a book club.

Now we feel it is the time to step back and examine how we bring people together and plan next steps in the Refugia journey! Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us!

In all that I do, I attempt to make connections. Between people, between the tangible and intangible, and between myself and the environment. Like any relationship, my connection with the natural world is complicated, sometimes disjointed, but overall positive. The natural world feeds me (physically and psychologically), it is the backbone of my work and my spirituality, and it provides comfort and grief.

Aisha Zaman from Dharma Chasers podcast took the time to sit down with both Jodi and I to share the stories of how Refugia came to be. This is my story. See Jodi's story, below.

One day you finally knewwhat you had to do, and began,though the voices around youkept shouting their bad advice--

though the whole housebegan to trembleand you felt the old tugat your ankles."Mend my life!"each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.You knew what you had to do,though the wind priedwith its stiff fingersat the very foundations,though their melancholywas terrible.

It was already lateenough, and a wild night,and the road full of fallenbranches and stones.

But little by little,as you left their voices behind,the stars began to burnthrough the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voicewhich you slowlyrecognized as your own,that kept you companyas you strode deeper and deeperinto the world,

determined to dothe only thing you could do--determined to savethe only life you could save.

Aisha Zaiman approached me in December to ask me to be on her podcast, DharmaChasers. The focus of DharmaChasers is to interview people who are doing the work that they are meant to do in the world. I was honoured to reflect upon the work I do in spiritual direction, and with Refugia as well as the journey it took to began that work. If you'd like to read more about my perspective on spiritual direction, please see our spiritual direction page found here: http://www.refugiaretreats.com/#/spiritualdirection/

Thanks again for the ceremony and for guiding us through some of the stages of healing around the grief we all still feel. I found this very helpful for my own healing process, so I am certain it had significance to the many who attended. I suspect there is still more work to do on all of this however, but taking this step yesterday was very meaningful. – Anonymous

***

We have rituals following loss. Funerals, estate sales, storytelling, flowers on a grave. These are the markers of human loss. Ritual grounds us – it helps us cope. Yet what rituals do we perform when the loss is intangible? When we lose a wetland to development, or beach to erosion? At Refugia, we believe recognition and ritual is important and helpful for dealing with environmental loss.

So we had a funeral – for the trees.

The Ghost Valley community is a tight-knit bunch; one that has been brought together by mutual grief over the landscape changes in the valley. Clearcut logging, rampant off-highway-vehicle use, and the 2013 flood has left the landscape looking very different than it did even five years ago. So Jodi and I were honoured to be invited to help with this transition in a small way: by leading the community through a ceremony of loss.

It began with a pipe ceremony performed by elders Virgil and Glen Stephens. This ceremony honoured the transitions and seasons in the valley, and allowed the community to talk about their loss and pain. And together – we ritualized it through a cairn of mourning. We each took 15 minutes alone in the clearcut, looking for an object that would represent our individual grief. We gathered together and one by one, placed our item in the centre. In the end, what was created was a marker for what was lost and what we were leaving behind.

***

The Ghost Valley is a special place and is also part of the headwaters for all Albertans who live downstream. We have lost our natural wetlands, when once we had hundreds of water fowl come and go each spring and fall. Beavers, fish… that habitat has been destroyed for lack of water.

This group of people have put their heart and soul into trying to stop the logging but by also staying human about it as well…. We may not stopped it but we did make a huge difference. Not once since we have been involved have we ever heard someone knocking down another for what they believe in! That is a first for me and shows me as well that people can work well together. What a gift.

Our memories of this group shall carry with me wherever I go. These are the memories of the Ghost Valley and the many new friendships that have been made going forward.

So as we go our separate ways... we will always be connected to each other while one is advocating to protect for what they believe in. -- Anonymous

***

But it turned out to be less of a funeral, and more of a Celebration of Life. For its in the midst of chaos that friendships are often formed. And this chaos highlighted one very important similarity among members of the Ghost – despite all the other differences. To grieve something is to show that you love it. So to celebrate the life that still thrives in the valley, we spent the rest of the evening sharing a meal and stories over a campfire.

As a facilitator, this experience was powerful. But this is not my story to tell; it’s the story of those who live there. So the italicized sections are written by two Ghost Valley community members in their journey of grief, community, and compassion.

***

Doing this work I think, by its very nature, breeds compassion within us. Compassion for our neighbours, for the wildlife and the forest in which we live. But this compassion I feel extends further to include compassion for those who drove the machinery that leveled the land we are all connected with. Perhaps it’s like a victim forgiving their perpetrator, as impossible as that seems. But there is a hidden understanding that comes with compassion - it would be like looking into the eyes of an equipment operator and understanding his life, his children and his desire to feed his family etc. Compassion and understanding for him will lead to him having more compassion for those impacted by his actions.

Somehow, I know now that if I were to start down a similar path today, to the one we started 2.5 to 3 years ago, I would likely make some different choices, engage people differently and likely see even a better outcome than what we had this time around. Perhaps I could make that journey with less anger and more compassion.

There are still many wrongs in the world of forestry in Alberta (and beyond), but I feel that we need to collectively use our accumulated experience and knowledge to still push for change - but push from a place of compassion.

Below is one of my favorite poems, which to me this symbolizes our deep connection with the Earth - our Mother Earth and how, if we work at deepening our connection with her we deepen our own understanding of ourselves… and with this follows compassion.-- Anonymous

I've been watching a lot of space movies lately. It is quite comforting to me to imagine the vastness of the Universe. The Something so outside of myself. The Something much bigger. I imagine the quietness out there, and the slowness of a place without gravity. That might be a sign of how unsettled life here on Earth has felt during the last year.

A few weeks ago I attended Refugia Retreats' Listening to your Life, a one-day event hosted in the breathtaking Ghost Valley. I had grown up frequently attending camps and retreats but, as can happen when you begin adulting, I'd lost touch with those special times of drawing nearer to myself, others, and nature.

Last to arrive, I joined a circle of people whose faces radiated different stories, backgrounds, and reasons for showing up. Though perhaps nervous, this group of strangers softened fairly quickly into beautiful exchanges of vulnerability as we were guided through reflections about the past year. As unique as our stories were, it was clear that as we let ourselves be seen, we could see ourselves in each other. The Universe bound us together through our shared knowledge of both struggle and hope. It was the Something so outside of us. The Something much bigger.

Later, as I surveyed the plentiful options of where to cozy up for some self-reflection, I instead felt guided to the path that led from the top of the property to the riverbed below. My weak footwear choice had me slipping and sliding down the incline while I held on to branches and side-stepped into snow banks. In my hand I held a rock from one of our reflective activities and on it was written the word fear. It was to describe my 2016. I stopped and held it up, noticing how its shape and rough edges closely resembled the mountain towering behind it. Such a small rock. Such a small Me, in comparison. In order to continue along my trajectory, I had to make a decision. It wasn't working to carry my rock and also hold the nature-hands that were helping me down the path. I paused, almost laughed at the life metaphor, and threw my rock away. I let go of my fear and held on to the Earth, which sat unmovable around me. I held on to the strength and groundedness of the Universe. The Something so outside of myself. The Something much bigger.

These small moments are the kind that shape our lives - the choosing to join in life when we feel nothing but chaos, and to put ourselves in places where we can look up to the heavens. Where we can connect to the Something Big.

Thank you to Refugia for drawing me out to that place, where I could dip my toes in the flow of the Universe and trade in my rock for a bigger one.

I was tired. I was distracted. I wasn’t sure I had the capacity to be there at all. It had been a hectic season. We had just moved from the beauty and stillness of the forests of the Ghost Valley into the freneticism and discord of the city. We were both starting new jobs. It had only been two weeks since we moved into our new apartment. I hadn’t really even had a day off in over a month. It was a Saturday in October. Chilly, but the sun was out and there were still a few golden leaves hanging onto the poplar branches. I was attending the first ever event created by Refugia Retreats – a day long introductory workshop to Joanna Macy’s Work that Reconnects. I was tired. But I was there.

I arrived with few expectations, but a fair bellyful of anxiety. I was anxious about the day for the sake of Jodi, my partner. As one of the workshop facilitators, she was taking a courageous step: hoping that the work she and her co-conspirators had prepared would be meaningful for us participants. But I was also anxious for my own sake. Meeting people can be hard. Sharing personal feelings and thoughts with relative strangers can be very hard. But even more than any of these things, my cursory knowledge of The Work made me aware that we would be dealing with some of the most personal and vulnerable parts of ourselves. I have trouble allowing myself to go there, much less allowing others into that space. I was there. But I was anxious.

Others have probably stated it more eloquently, but the lesson I am learning about life is that all that is really required is to show up. Most of the messages I receive and amplify are variations on the theme of not being enough. Be better, do better, act better, feel better. Pull yourself together. This narrative is dangerous for me not only because it diminishes my intrinsic and kinetic worth, but also because it isolates. It is the story that disconnects: Like, I have to sort my stuff out before I’m any good to anyone else, so it’s probably best if I just don’t put myself out there quite yet. I’ll stay home today and work out my salvation – with fear. And trembling. But that’s a hard job, and so maybe instead I’ll just watch an episode or six of Breaking Bad. Thus, the not-enough messaging perpetuates a negative feedback loop that turns me away from my relationships, my community, my ecosystem, and my soul. I turn away. But showing up – tired or not, ready or not, comfortable or not – showing up is simultaneously an act of courage and an act of love. It’s not about being good. It’s about being there. Joanna Macy puts it like this:

“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of the world.”

So I was there. I wasn’t fully there – “absolutely present” – as Joanna puts it, but I was there. There were 17 of us, gathered in a small conference room in the west end of downtown Calgary. And it was, in the end, a hard day. The Work carries participants through four movements of a spiral: 1) Opening to gratitude; 2) Owning our pain for the world; 3) Seeing with new eyes; and 4) Going forth. It is beautiful, deep, meaningful work, but it can also be achingly difficult and personal work. It requires acknowledging and even embracing the whole truth of the mess we are in as a species. It brings to the surface the deep fear, grief, confusion, hope, and joy I hold in my soul – for the entire planet as well as for my little interior world. This is hard work. By the end of the day, I was exhausted. My heart though, was full.

“Refugia” is the name Jodi and Amy have chosen for this endeavor. It is an ecological term: Refugia are the small pockets of sanctuary found amid desolation and destruction where life survives, endures, regenerates. These refugium have been discovered where no one expected anything to survive – after the Mount St. Helens eruption, for example – and are the catalysts for new life and new growth in devastated areas. On that chilly day in October, those 17 of us gathered in that little conference room simultaneously discovered and created a refugium together. Joanna Macy says that we have the opportunity to live in the Great Turning – where we as a collective species turn from life-destroying systems toward life-sustaining systems. This turning is as big as changing our economic, political, and social systems. But it is also as small as turning toward each other in gratitude, lament, hope, and love. The Great Turning is me turning toward you. It is us turning toward each other, and all our neighbors (human and otherwise). It is turning towards ourselves, honestly, and openly; tired, anxious, whatever. It is a refusal to keep turning away. This is the gift I received from our little refugium that Saturday. A glimpse of the Great Turning manifest in the small turning toward. A small seed planted within that I will cultivate and tend to and add to our shared garden.